n a stream, the change in the vegetation was
astonishing. It was a sudden transition from an English, plantation of
fir trees into the jungle of the tropics, full of Indian figs, palms,
lancewood, and great mahagua[1] trees, all knotted together by endless
creepers and parasites; while the parrots kept up a continual
chattering and screaming in the tree-tops. The moment we left the
narrow strip of tropical forest that lined the stream we were in the
pine wood. Here the first two or three feet of the trunks of the pine
trees were scorched and blackened by the flames of the tall dry
savannah-grass, which grows close round them, and catches fire several
times every year. Through the pine forest the conflagration spreads
unobstructed, as in an American prairie; but it only runs along the
edge of the dense river-vegetation, which it cannot penetrate.

The Banos de Santa Fe are situated in a cleared space among the fir
trees. The baths themselves are nothing but a cavity in the rock, into
which a stream, at a temperature of about 80 deg., continually flows. A
partition in the middle divides the ladies from the gentlemen, but
allows them to continue their conversation while they sit and splash in
their respective compartments.

The houses are even more quaint than the bathing-establishment. The
whole settlement consists of a square field surrounded by little
houses, each with its roof of palm leaves and indispensable verandah.
Here the Cubans come to stay for months, bathing, smoking cigarettes,
flirting, gossiping, playing cards, and strumming guitars; and they
seemed to be all agreed on one point, that it was a delightful
existence. We left them to their tranquil enjoyments, and rode back to
Nueva Gerona.

Next morning we borrowed a gun from the engineer of the steamboat, and
I bought some powder and shot at a shop where they kept two young
alligators under the counter for the children to play with. The creeks
and lagoons of the island are full of them, and the negroes told us
that in a certain lake not far off there lived no less a personage than
"the crocodile king"--"_el rey de los crocodilos_;" but we had no time
to pay his majesty a visit. Two of the Floridan negroes rowed us up the
river. Even at some distance from the mouth, sting-rays and jelly-fish
were floating about. As we rowed upwards, the banks were overhung with
the densest vegetation. There were mahogany trees with their curious
lop-sided leaves, the copal